Are New Hampshire's highways preventing the return of the bobcat? From a map of NH hanging outside a laboratory on the campus of UNH, it would appear that way. A genetic study is now underway to determine if man-made and natural barriers are limiting their return.

From a map of NH hanging outside a laboratory on the campus of UNH, it would appear that way.

A genetic study is now underway to determine if man-made and natural barriers are limiting their return.

"The big things are the roads," said Dr. Marian Litvaitis, who is leading the study. "They may be dividing the population, genetically."

She is a conservation geneticist and professor of conservation biology at the University of NH.

She and Rory Carroll, a master's candidate in wildlife and conservation biology, met with me for a few hours last week to discuss the study and initial findings. It is a fascinating study.

Using DNA samples from the tongues of about 130 of the cats, who have been killed along New Hampshire's roadways since 2003, the study is looking at genetic similarities and differences based on their found location.

It could be that not only does the road kill them, it acts as a fence for breeding.

If they can't cross the road and mate with the bobcats on the other side, inbreeding risks reproductive failure and a lack of adaptability.

Funded by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station, the three-year study began last fall.

Looking at the different colors representing different genetic characteristics, they differ based on region. Add the highway systems in and it appears to separate them.

That may mean that bobcats cannot return to New Hampshire with much abundance as they did before the highway system was built up.

Bobcats roamed New Hampshire without much trouble before there were highways. The typical range of a bobcat is 30 square kilometers, and males go even farther in search of food. Manchester, for example is 90 square kilometers, so that property area can handle about three bobcats.

They ate rabbits, historically but are adapting to that lack of prey.

In the 1957 book by Helenette Silver, "A History of New Hampshire Game and Furbearers" she writes, "In recent years Cheshire, Sullivan and Hillsboro Counties have been producing the greatest number of cats per acre while Strafford County remains near the bottom for cat production."

Bobcats had plenty of food when the state had an early successional forest and there were plenty of rabbits and low brushy habitat.

The cats were hunted and trapped for their fur up until 1989. Prized for their pelts, particularly the spotted, soft underbelly, bobcats have continued to be used for human adornment.

When there were so few being registered for bounty, the state decided that it was time to consider them rare and stopped the bobcat season entirely. Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine still have bobcat trapping.

Physically, they are not adapting well to the northern part of the state and are losing to lynx in the competition for food, there, Rory said.

The lynx's paws, like "clown-shoes" as Rory as calls them, give them the advantage over the bobcat for food on snowy surfaces.

A boon for bobcats, however, has been the re-introduction of the turkey.

Now, more than 40,000 strong, turkeys are in all 10 counties. They also eat squirrel and will wait under bird feeders for the squirrels.

Rory is headed next month to present at the North American Congress of Conservation Biology in Missoula, Montana.

There, he will share preliminary data on NH's bobcats and genetic information.

The team is also presenting in Sweden in the fall at an international meeting on landscape genetics.

Road engineers, biologist and other experts will be there too, looking to future building of roadway designs which might help to provide access "pinch points" to allow for animal movement, Marian said.

She noted there is also a public health interest in understanding bobcats because they carry disease, like a form of feline leukemia and mange.

In addition to the road kills, the team has an extraordinary collection of bobcat skulls, from the 1950s to do genetic comparisons.

The late Clark Stevens, a naturalist and UNH faculty member, gave Marian's husband, Dr. John Litvaitis, the collection of over 300 skulls. They are each in little boxes on the lab wall.

After trappers and shooters registered their bounty, Stevens would get the skeletons and do autopsies and record if they were pregnant, had parasites and prepared the skulls, among other things. He left a wealth of knowledge.

Dr. John Litvaitis has been leading a Fish and Game study of bobcat habitat suitability.

Genetic diversity is better. Say you had 100 different genetic individuals. You kill off 80.

Then 20 are left in genetics to reproduce. You are not going to have that wide variety and that is not a good thing to have because if the environment changes, disease attacks, they cannot adapt as well.

In addition to Montana and Sweden, the scientists are also going out to New Hampshire schools for talks with school children.

There is a lot more is being learned about this elusive resident and a lot more to learn.

"When we have healthy predator populations, this benefits the entire ecological community, including other animals and plants. It seems like the population is getting more robust, but the landscape now is very different than it was when bobcats were very widespread so we are interested to see if it?s even possible for bobcats to have a healthy, well-connected population," Rory said.

Founded in 1887, the NH Agricultural Experiment Station at the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture is UNH's original research center and an elemental component of New Hampshire's land-grant university heritage and mission.

It stewards federal and state funding to provide unbiased and objective research concerning diverse aspects of sustainable agriculture, aquaculture, forest management, and related wildlife and natural resources.